The Angel of Slatina
by Calla Mae
Summary: Escaping Thanos' control Elara flees to Earth and finds herself free for the first time in her life. She must learn how to live in this new world, making new friends and enemies, falling in love. But with the threat of her father's mad quest to wipe out half the universe, will she lose it all? OC/Bucky
1. Chapter 1

The clap of her boots on the cliff she walked seemed to echo in the vast empty space around them. The sound announced her arrival and the stone chair that hovered above her slowly began to turn. When her eyes met his her feet stilled and she moved no further. "Father," was her quiet greeting.

Smiling as though he were happy to see her the Titan stepped from his throne and stood towering over her. "It's good to see you, Elara" he told her raising a large hand to her cheek, feeling her lean into his touch. His smile grew. "You stayed away too long this time."

"I'm sorry, father," she replied, her eyes downcast.

Watching her blank face closely he asked, "were you with anyone?"

Elara's eyes shifted to his violet face and she blinked slowly at him. He knew. "Of course," she answered honestly, catching the faint twitch of his mouth, "Nebula always keeps me safe."

"That she does," he agreed, pale eyes flicking to the mechanical daughter hovering in the shadows, who he'd forcibly retrieved answers from. Her optic scanner malfunctioned leaving only a partial video, in it he'd seen Elara's smile. It was something he hadn't seen in some time. Looking at her now, staring innocently up at him with her smaller hand holding his to her face, he tried to remember when she stopped smiling. His sweet girl. "The asgardian failed, you know this."

"Yes father."

"The mind stone remains on Earth though it has changed hands. You will find it and bring it to me," he told her, his fingers trailing under her chin before his hand returned to his side. "He also lost the space stone, this you only need bring the location. There is no one better suited."

As Elara bid him a grateful, "thank you father," behind her Nebula seethed. If it wasn't Gamora it was Elara, she wasn't his most prized fighter but he favored her differently.

The two returned to their ship, Nebula's footsteps cracking like thunder as she stalked along the metal flooring. "I'll take you to Earth if only to be rid of you," she said through clenched teeth as she threw herself into the pilot's chair and set their course.

Calmly Elara sat beside her feeling the hyperdrive starting up. "Well I for one will miss you dearly," she said with a hint of irony to cut through the vulnerability of her honesty.

"Because you're weak," Nebula sneered, but without enough bite to sound like she meant it.

"Maybe," she quietly agreed.

They traveled in the silence Nebula created, but it was soft in the way only Elara could be. Glancing at her awed face as she watched the stars bleed Nebula felt as though a hole had been carved in the pit of her stomach, she wanted to be sick.

It seemed small, Elara thought as they came to a stop hovering outside of Earth's atmosphere. But it was beautiful, this little blue dot. There was a soft whir and a loud click, and Elara turned to Nebula seeing her left eye jutting out. With nimble fingers Elara disconnected the wire to the sensor as she had many times before.

"You won't be forgiven for this," Nebula warned her. Any leniency Thanos was capable he showed only to Elara, and they both knew it was out of no real care for her.

Hooking her retracted sword to the belt of the white suit Thanos had crafted specifically for her, Elara replied, "I'd imagine not." She looked at Nebula to see her stubbornly turned away. "Will you not say goodbye?"

"From the day he brought you I've waited to be rid of you." She'd carved her voice to stone, her black eyes refusing to look at her. She jerked at the light touch on her hand and recoiled, feeling Elara's grip tighten unwilling to let go.

Binding their fingers Elara stepped closer pressed against her side, hearing Nebula's harsh breathing as she pressed her forehead to Nebula's cold temple, the tip of her nose brushing her cheek. "I'll always love you."

Nebula turned into her touch though her eyes looked as though it pained her. "You were always the weakest of our siblings," she said unrelenting.

It curled a smile on Elara's face. "You never saw me as your sister," she reminded her. "Otherwise you wouldn't love me as you do." The absence of pain was all Nebula knew of happiness. And mine is you, Elara thought looking at her blue plated face.

"I don't love you," Nebula told her callous and hateful.

Still smiling Elara said, "of course not."

Feeling her pull away Nebula finally looked at her, feeling the nonexistent thread that tied them together making her want to reach for her. A thousand times Nebula almost did, a thousand times she almost let Elara love her. And she thought, as she always did, why not. But every time Nebula remembered how easily Thanos had taken her heart from her the first time. "Let this be my last kindness to you," Nebula said, meeting Elara's sad gaze. "Should we meet again I won't hesitate to kill you."

"I know," was Elara's simple response.

There was no anger or ill will, no accusation, and yet Nebula still felt the burn of shame. As Elara turned to the escape pod Nebula grabbed her arm and jerked her back feeling her stumble as they collided. As metal encircled her wrist Elara looked down at the cuff to see a smooth red chip in the center that almost looked like a jewel. And on the wrist of the hand that held her too tightly Elara saw Nebula had an identical marker. They shared a rare quiet look before Nebula shoved her, forcing distance between them.

Catching herself Elara looked at her as though to memorize her face before she climbed into the escape pod and ejected it. From above Nebula watched in grieved silence until the pod fell farther than she could see. And then she was alone, with nothing to fill the empty space Elara left behind.

…

Flitting quickly across the surrounding area a drone hovered over the crashed oblong ship scanning for signs of life around the dimly lit empty stretch of highway. Hundreds of miles away Nick Fury stood watching the feed closely, the sensor was picking up something faint on one specific part of the road but neither it nor Fury could make out the details. Suddenly the road seemed to leap up and grab the drone, the last image recorded were a pair of strangely technicolored eyes. "Hostile confirmed," Fury said to the man on the other end of the mic.

"Noted," Tony said less than a mile out now. He stopped and hovered several feet from the strange pod that'd split the road on impact, it was the only heat signature he picked up. "I'm not seeing anything," he told Fury, who he called after JARVIS informed him of the unknown spacecraft that had entered earth's atmosphere only a few minutes before.

"Yeah the drone didn't either," Fury replied.

"Sir?"

"What is it JARVIS?" Tony replied looking from one end of the highway to the other, lit only by a few roadway lights. Still no sign of anything.

"There's a section of grass that isn't moving with the surrounding area," JARVIS explained sectioning what he noticed for Tony to view.

Tony turned seeing the outline highlighted for him and had just enough time to mutter, "shit," before it rammed into him sending him spiraling toward the ground. Holding his hands out he caught himself with the rockets in his gauntlets and prepared to fly up from whatever came out of the ship when a hand latched onto his foot dragging him down and slammed him into the asphalt. Finding himself lifted into the air he got a hand under him and hit his grass-shaded assailant square in the chest with a repulsor.

He watched them tumble along the ground before catching themselves and turning toward him, and with a sudden shift of color Tony found himself looking at a tall woman with yellow skin and red and blue hair. And she looked very pissed off. "We can talk this through," he told her, trying to lessen the deep lines of anger carved in her strange face.

She lunged after him, and the rockets in his little boots lit up in a way she realized meant he was going to fly away. Grabbing his leg she flung him to the ground, and when he tried to catch himself she landed on his back flattening him with a loud crack. Another blast from his glove and she was thrown to the side, she caught herself easier and jumped at him again pulling him with her back down so that she fell heavy over him. Lifting his shoulders she threw him back onto the strange rock hearing part of his armor crack. His arm rose to hit her again but she grabbed it, tightening her fist so her fingers broke through the metal and she pulled it off throwing it aside.

Tony lay with his ears ringing and his head spinning feeling asphalt under his palm. He raised his other arm but she lashed out and slammed it on the ground hard enough he felt the frame splinter. Before he could transfer power to the main arc reactor in the center of his chest her fist came down cracking it hard enough he felt the blow from within the suit, he swore his heart skipped a beat. This was it, she was gonna kill him. As the screen above him flickered in and out he felt her tear the helmet from his head and watched her raise it above her head. He closed his eyes bracing himself for the final blow hearing metal crunch in his ear.

Finding he was conscious of his own panting, having yet to feel any new pain, he cracked an eye open to see her gaping down at him, her hand next to his head where she'd crushed his helmet.

"You are not a machine," she said softly, feeling her heart still racing as she stared down at his mildly frightened face.

Tony looked at her and saw confusion as she touched his cheek. "Not last I checked." He wanted something quipier, something that felt more like him, but he was still reeling from her strong hands that were now almost gentle on his face.

All of sudden she was on her feet pulling him off the ground, and he grabbed her to keep from falling and righted himself standing only a few inches taller than her. She had to be near six feet at least. "My apologies," she told him, "I did not realize you were a person."

Catching his breath he nodded. "Yeah, I know a few people who'd disagree." He looked down at himself seeing she'd ripped off chunks of his suit, and gathered around the asphalt around him were the remains of his helmet and gauntlet. "You owe me a new suit," he told her, hitting his still covered hand against his leg hoping to get the repulsor back up. But there was nothing more than a dull clang, she'd killed the suit. Taking a heavy breath he looked at her to see her curiously appraising him. "So who are you, why are you here?"

"I am Elara," she greeted, looking at his wary face as he tried to step back. "There is something on this planet my father wants."

"And you're here to get it for him," Tony said hoping Fury sent backup because she'd effectively neutered him.

"No," she said shaking her head, her deep blue brows drawing together on her yellow-tinted face. "I came to make sure he never gets it."

He chuckled faint and unamused. "And I'm just supposed to believe you?"

"I don't care if you believe me. He will destroy everything if he gets it, I cannot let that happen. And if you are the best defense this planet has to offer then you will not stop me."

"Okay first of all," he raised a finger at her, "that hurt. I expect another apology. And second, I've got a green friend I'm sure you'd love to meet."

The furrow between her brows deepened. "You know Gamora?"

"Who?"

"The green friend I want to meet, is it my sister?"

"No?" Tony said trying to figure out what was happening. "We have a Hulk, he's big and green, and would take you in a fight."

"Then why would I want to meet him?"

Tony sighed heavily raising his eyes to the night sky above them. "It's an expression," he muttered. "Look, kid, you can't just fall from the sky and," he was stopped by her hand over his mouth as she turned to look in the distance.

Her auditory sensors picked up the faint whir of rotors and she turned spotting a strange looking ship coming toward them. "Someone is coming, get behind me weak human."

He'd just opened his mouth to give an unkind retort when she pulled what he thought was a dagger from her belt and hit a button making it longer and wider than his forearm. For a moment he was stunned at realizing how easily she could've killed him if not for her obvious curiosity.

The two stood as the chopper circled around them before landing several feet away, and as the doors were opened several black-suited men with military grade weapons streamed out and got into position aiming at the strange woman that stood wielding only a sword. At the sight of an older man donning a scowl and an eye patch Tony pulled her arm down so the sword was pointing at the ground. "He's a friend," he told her quickly, feeling her start to pull away.

"Then why do they have weapons?"

"Because you're not," he said tightening his grip on her arm even though he knew she could easily throw him aside.

Elara looked from him to the heavily armed men judging the situation and how best she could get out of it. There was no doubt in her mind she'd win, but the man behind her would get himself killed. "I don't want to put my sword away."

"You good, Stark?" Fury asked seeing this woman had done a number on him.

"Yup, just new to Earth," Tony called back still looking at her. "You need to put it away," he told her firmly.

Catching movement she turned to see the armed men return their guns to their side, and she looked back to Tony who was still holding her arm. Though she was unhappy she pressed the switch again and when the blade retracted she returned it to her belt. She turned to him looking for the first time young, and unknowing. "What happens now?"

He held a hand out toward where Fury stood by the chopper knowing well enough to wait for the girl to be brought to him. "Now we talk."

For a moment she stood contemplating that, if it would get her what she wanted. But she came to realize other than freedom she didn't know what she wanted, but she figured he was a good enough start. "Okay," she agreed in a quiet voice.

With a nod he stepped forward and a piece of his suit fell clattering to the ground. His jaw clenched and turned to her. "I was serious about you owing me a new suit."

"Wouldn't you want a better one?"

He turned with wide irate eyes. "It was a perfectly fine suit. What do you even know, you're ET if he were big and yellow."

Huffing she rolled her eyes. "I don't know what is ET, but I know you didn't last five minutes."

They'd come within hearing distance of Fury and he smirked faintly chuckling. "I like you already," he told her, finding her coloring unsettling but her otherwise humanoid features familiar. "Nick Fury."

She looked down at the dark hand he held out to her confused. "Yes," she said looking back up at him, "I also have hands."

He laughed again. "It's a handshake, that's how we say hello," he explained to her, seeing she still didn't understand.

"We'll work on it," Tony said reaching a hand to her shoulder to nudge her into the chopper. He noticed the way she flinched drawing into herself, the way she reached for the hilt of her sword before she realized no one meant to hurt her. He'd have to remember that.

She was hesitant as she climbed into their small ship, questioning again if this was the right thing. Times like these Nebula would sneer, and if Gamora was there she'd yell at Nebula and reach a gentle hand to Elara's arm. For the first time in her life Elara had every choice to make and no one to stop her. So she sat back, making her first choice.

* * *

_Welcome to the story, I hope ya'll enjoy it. You guys will learn more about Elara as the story progresses, but she'll really start opening up and you'll learn the most a little bit after she meets Bucky. _


	2. Chapter 2

She sat in an enclosed room in the helicarrier with her hands folded on the table, where Toni told her to put them after she'd broken the two way mirror across from her. She hadn't meant to, she didn't understand why she'd been able to see inside the room but she couldn't see outside of it and she'd pushed too hard on the glass shattering it.

Fury and Toni stood several feet back watching her look around herself with a cautious curiosity that softened her features and widened her eyes making her look almost innocent. "I shouldn't have to tell you the risk she poses," Fury said in a low hushed voice.

"She's been cooperating," Tony stated with his arms crossed as he narrowed his eyes at her, the way her yellow hand pressed into the metal table until it dented. Insatiably curious.

"What do we do when she decides not to?" Fury posed instead. She'd made possibly the fastest work taking Tony out and that unsettled him in the worst way. They needed to have some way of controlling her, incapacitating her should the need arise.

For a rare moment Tony was quiet as he watched her, she looked at the world with the wide-eyed mysticism of a child. "I'm not sure what it'd take to stop her," he wasn't even confident Hulk could which meant they had very few non-lethal options, "what I do know is she stopped the moment she saw I was alive. Kid's at least making an effort, until we know exactly what she's after I say we do the same."

Before either man could say anything further on the matter Agent Hill made her way to them holding the pad displaying her bioscans. At Fury's order she glanced at the alien woman before turning back to him explaining, "scans show several cybernetic enhancements, her entire skeleton appears to be made of some kind of metal, respiratory implants, enhanced neurological system which has what appears to be an access port on the base of her neck, the most living tissue other than her skin are her brain and her heart and even those have been modified."

"How about auditory sensors?" Tony asked still watching her.

Maria cast the woman another suspicious look. "Yeah, she's heard everything."

Tony nodded having reached that conclusion on his own, and without the tests to prove it he'd also guess optic enhancements as well. "I'm gonna talk to her," he said not waiting for Fury's word before he made his way to where she waited. She looked up at him with a level of trust he wasn't expecting, there was a lot about her he was having trouble piecing together. But what he said was, "it doesn't count when you're cheating." From the crease that etched between her brows he knew she didn't understand. "You're skeleton's made of metal, it wasn't a fair fight."

"I didn't ask for it," she stated with a simple innocence. But her brows drew further together. "And you showed up in armor," she reminded him.

He shrugged pulling out the chair across from her. "We'll call it a draw." Sitting he folded his hands on the table seeing her mimic him and do the same. "So who gave it to you if you didn't want it?"

"My father."

Blinking at her he took a deep breath before releasing it in a loud rush from his nose. "Yeah I'm not touching that. Look, kid, you gotta know we're not just gonna let you go," he told her bluntly. "There isn't much we can do to stop you that doesn't involve killing you, which makes the people behind me a little nervous about letting you stay. So why don't you start with why you're here and what you want and we'll see if we can't make a deal." He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest watching her closely as she considered that, she didn't have to say a word for him see what she decided. "You don't have a lot of options, Elara, the more you prolong this the less they're gonna be willing to give you. You need to cooperate."

"I have several options you just don't like them," she told him, hearing the heavy breath he took as he ground his jaw.

Narrowing his eyes he added up everything about her he knew and what he'd been noticing, and with a curt nod he stood and walked back out. "Where is it, her weapon, who has it?" he demanded as he scanned the agents around him. Seeing a man studying the retracted dagger he snatched it and marched back in to where Elara still sat and slammed it on the table in front of her. "Yeah you're right, you've got a lot of options. Let me give one, the only way you're getting out of here is killing me." He jerked his head to the sword and told her, "go ahead."  
She sat looking up at him her eyes seeming to grow wider but not with anger, and after several silent moments Tony returned to his chair and crossed his arms again. "You don't wanna tell me more about why you're here, fine, we can work up to that. But you need to tell us what you want." That would be the basis for how SHIELD was gonna handle her, if she needed to be contained or if they might be able to work with her.

This time when she remained quiet Tony waited her out, seeing something vulnerable in the way she was looking at him; with her shoulders drawn in, her strange colored eyes shining, she almost looked small. Until finally she unhinged her jaw and told him quietly, "I don't wanna kill anyone anymore."

"We can work with that," Fury said coming to stand in the doorway. Tony figured it out sooner but it was clear this girl didn't want to fight, she was just scared. "But we gotta know you'll work with us, follow our laws." She seemed pretty docile now, easy to keep a handle on, but he'd seen how quick she ended a fight.

She was quiet again as she thought, again not knowing where to go from here because here was as far as she planned. "He was a tyrant," she told Fury, seeing from the severity in his eye and in the way he held himself he was in a position of power. "He hurt innocent people, I won't do that again."

He nodded stepping further into the room looking down at her. "What if I told you our job is to take out people like your father," which was more or less true and she didn't need to know it was more less. "Would you do that?"

She looked from Fury to Tony putting together the fractured bits of information she'd been collecting. "You're the good guys," she said in such a way it was clear she was looking for their affirmative.

Fury answered, "we try to be."

Considering that, and that she really didn't know what being good meant only that it was something she'd always wanted to be and felt like she'd never get to, she nodded quickly in a way one might consider almost enthusiastic.

The night was far from over, an extensive interrogation would be conducted the moment he left. Tony didn't figure she'd answer much yet but the most pressing issue on whether she was there to cause harm was at least settled. "First things first, ET, most people aren't gonna like the way you look. Does your ability to camouflage do anything for that?" Tony asked knowing even if she was cleared they couldn't just send a giant yellow woman out into the world without at least a few incidents.

She cast her eyes between Tony and Fury, looked beyond them to the few people she could see further back in the ship trying to find a common color between them but instead she saw a range from dark brown to very pale so she decided on something in the middle. The pigment in her skin warmed to a nut brown while her hair darkened to a shade close to Tony's, and she blinked at their stunned faces with her multicolored eyes and asked, "will they like this more?"

Her eyes were still a little too far apart, her neck too long, her figure too tall and willowy to be natural, but she looked human. It's what Tony had thought, and after swallowing his initial surprise at how quick her coloring changed he rose to his feet. "I know just the man with just the right high horse who might take her," he said seeing Fury's nod having considered the same thing, "I'll let him know what's going on."

"I'll call you when we're ready to meet," Fury said as he took Stark's seat across from Elara and met her cautious eye. "We've got a lot of questions, it's gonna be a long night."

…

The park was busy that sunny morning with early morning foot traffic as people hurried to work. Tony and Steve made their way to the stoic man standing with his arms crossed as he stared across the large expanse of grass.

"Alright, where's Big Bird?" Tony asked scanning the sea of faces without finding her.

Fury nodded his head to the bushes a couple hundred feet from them. "She found the flowers first, then the dog."

It curled a half smile on Steve's face as he found her kneeling beside a spaniel seeming to speak it, but Tony rolled his eyes huffing irritably. He stopped first at a cart pulling out a twenty, the closest he had to a dollar, and made his way to where Elara had turned back to the flowers having never seen such ones before. Without a word of greeting he grabbed her hand slipping the looped string around her wrist and pulling it tighter. "Stay where we can see you."

Her eyes flicked to the round red thing that floated by her head attached to her wrist. She turned, sharp eyes narrowing suspiciously, trying to see it better but it came closer and she stepped back but it came with her again. Throwing her arm back she tried to shake it loose but it kept following her.

"Stop, Elara," he sighed getting his arms around her and grabbing her wrist to keep her still. "It's a balloon," he grabbed the string and pulled the balloon down to eye level so she could see it, and still she glared not trusting it, "they're sacks of air, kids love them." He popped her on the nose with it making her jump before he let her go. "Seriously, kid, don't wander away."

Elara watched him walk back to Mr Fury and another man she didn't know, but her eyes slid back to the balloon floating once more by her head and they were carved with unhappy suspicion.

"She doesn't look like much," Steve said when Tony stopped beside them. He'd seen the partial footage JARVIS recorded before she'd cracked the suit killing the power, she didn't look like much of a fighter now.

"She has her moments," was Tony's dry response as he looked to Fury. "What'd you get out of her?"

Fury inhaled sharply before sighing, glancing briefly at where she stood eyeing another dog that was trying to get her to pet it. "Same thing she told you, her old man wants something and she won't let him get it. Other than that she's not saying much."

"She say if he'd come here to get it?"

A wry unamused smile tugged at the corner of one side of Fury's mouth. "Said he's already been here."

Tony blinked in surprised understanding. "New York, that was her father?" Of course it was, the thought of the alien he'd felt going through the black hole had his hand tightening out of reflex.

"Said if he got his hands on what she was trying to keep from him New York would seem like a game, that's all she'd say." Fury watched Tony grind his jaw as he thought, about whether they should consider containing her. "She's scared of him." He'd seen something in her eyes when she spoke of him, the way they widened, that had Tony pausing.

She was going too far, something had caught her eye drawing her to the edge of the park near a bus station. "Mom can I get a balloon?"

The tired woman looked first at her son then at the cart on the other side of the park and then at her watch before sighing. "We don't have time, honey. Next time okay."

He huffed a sad sigh as his head fell, she said that last time too. Holding her hand he scuffed his shoe on the concrete trying to keep his lip from poking out because his mom would get on to him for crying.

Across the park Steve stood watching her bend down and slip the string onto the little boy's wrist. His face lit up as he held the balloon and he looked up at her with a wide smile she was happy to return. "I'll take her," Steve decided without looking at either man.

"You sure about that, Rogers?" Tony asked the same time Fury called her back through the ear piece he'd given her that morning knowing she'd want to explore.

Steve was still watching her as she walked slowly back to them, the innocence with which she stared at the world around her. And he shrugged answering, "I could use a neighbor." He waited until she reached them before he held his hand out. "I'm Steve."

She looked at his hand not knowing why he was trying to give it to her. "Mr Fury said it was a handshake," she told him seriously, a small crease etched between her brows.

A gentle smile spread over his mouth as he looked the short distance down at her strangely colored eyes. "Here, I'll show you." He reached for her hand and held it in his before shaking it. "I'm Steve, it's nice to meet you."

Her own smile was small, almost shy, as she looked at him "I'm Elara," she told him. He had kind eyes, a kindness she'd never seen, she decided he was good. She hadn't been sure about anything since she got here, but she was sure about him.


	3. Chapter 3

_This chapter jumps to the start of Winter Soldier. There is a cameo and a nod to another marvel movie/comic, let me know if you catch it. _

* * *

_A year and a half later_

It was the kind of early where the sun had only just thought of rising, illuminating the world outside their quiet apartment just enough to see details in the shadows. Steve knocked on the door to the apartment next to his hearing her muffled, "come in," so he did.

"You don't have to knock," Elara told him pleasantly as she always did, knowing no matter how many times she told him that he would always knock. "Do you want one?"

She'd just discovered smoothies, he'd gotten her the blender last week and in her excitement she'd hugged him hard enough it'd left a ring of bruises around his middle. He hadn't really minded. "Maybe when we're done." He did grab a few pieces of fruit off the cutting board as she put on her shoes.

They'd gone running every morning since she moved in. Or rather he went running and she walked slowly after him enjoying everything around her. Sometimes he'd find her on a bench talking to someone, other times she literally stopped to smell the roses.

This morning she was sitting at the far end of the park next to a funny old man she'd met several months ago; he had a great many stories to tell with a bright twinkle in his eye that he hid behind tinted glasses.

But a call came as it did every morning to steer her back into their routine, because without one Steve was pretty sure she'd wander away and never come back. She didn't like the apartment, she didn't like working for SHEILD, he didn't think she really liked DC. She'd spent her entire life lying about being happy, and she was so good she could almost convince herself. But Steve could see it, she wasn't happy here.

"They're calling us in," he told her, and from the silence on her end he could picture the way her shoulders slumped.

"Okay," she told him in her perpetually sunny voice. She turned back to the only friend she'd made on her own, and at his knowing grin she released a breath and returned his smile.

He pat her leg before waving a hand to shoo her. "I'll see you in a few days," he told her, always knowing more than he should.

"And you'll finish telling me about the little boy and his fluffy robot?" she asked. His answer was a wide squinty eyed smile as she stepped away. She made it several feet before turning back, and as always she paused at finding him gone.

She made it across the park in a little over a minute and she walked around the sweaty man to stand beside Steve. "This is Sam Wilson," Steve told her knowing if he didn't she'd ask. From the way Sam was eyeing her he thought Sam would have too.

She stuck her hand out with a bright smile that had the other man blinking before a grin split his face as he shook her hand. "Hi Sam Wilson," she told him with an open honesty he wasn't used to. "I'm Elara."

Most people carried an edge of mistrust around strangers, but not this one and it had Sam's smile softening. "It's nice to meet you, Elara," he told her. "There a last name to go with it?"

Her smile slipped away as she turned to Steve. "No," she said the same time he said "yes."

"Why don't get your assignment from Natasha," he told her before she could make Sam's brows furrow further. Elara shrugged as she turned heading for the quiet woman waiting in the car.

Sam jerked his chin after her. "What's her story?" he asked finding something just a little off about her.

But Steve only offered a small knowing smile and shook his head. "She's classified."

"Hey Lars," Natasha greeted as Elara slid into the back, hearing her own warm greeting. Natasha hadn't been sure of her at first, definitely hadn't been when she learned she was an alien. But she was mild in nature and after a while Steve told her she reminded Elara of her sister.

The three made their way to SHIELD for debriefing, Elara was taken to Fury's office to wait while Steve and Natasha were given their assignment and made to move out with their team.

She was sitting across from the desk he rarely used when Fury made it back to her. With a curt wave of his hand she stood and followed him. "I need you to bring someone in for questioning," Fury told her as he led her to where a jet was being prepped for her. "Nat's getting the codes, you're getting the man to decrypt them."

"Will you let him go when he's done?"

Fury turned to her, his expression blank. "Something like that," he answered seeing early signs of a frown tugging the corners of her mouth down. "You know you're not gonna like the answer, why keep asking?"

She shrugged at they continued down the hall. "Maybe one day you'll give me an answer I will like." She knew that wasn't gonna happen. It turned out the good guys hurt as many people, they just used better reasons for it.

She'd proven difficult over the many months they'd been working with her, she could easily go on the mission he'd sent Rogers to take out all men and get the information - she was a one woman team. But she continued to refuse, the girl just wouldn't fight. Unless she didn't have a choice, which is what he was sending her into now knowing if he was right she was the only one who could make it out of there alive. He was gonna get an earful when she got back tonight.

...

The small thin man sat behind a computer in what he thought was an empty office. Unknown to him Elara stood against the wall reading over his shoulder. The language she didn't understand but there was one word she knew very well from how many times Fury said it to her: HYDRA.

Seeing enough Elara pushed off the wall and the color slipped off her so that when the man looked to the corner of his screen he could finally see the shape of her in the reflection. Before he could turn she got a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him out of the chair dragging him with her. She'd knock him out on the plane. She found out that everyone – humans and aliens alike - gave information freely as they pleaded and tried to negotiate.

This man was no different, he pulled at her hands and tried hitting her, nothing phased her. She pulled him around the corner with her heading for the stairwell to get to the roof where she'd landed the plane, but she jerked to a sudden stop at the sight of a man standing at the door to the stairs blocking their exit. She shifted her hold on the man's neck pulling him more beside her as her eyes narrowed: black mask, a flash of metal, and the kind of stillness that came with not being alive.

The soldier's arm had only just started to rise to draw aim at his two targets when she shoved the informant into the room beside them and seemed to disappear.

He stood holding the rifle level with where her chest had been and scanned the hall. Catching a flutter of movement he fired off a few shots wondering if it was some new cloaking mechanism.

Elara crouched low against the wall with a bullet embedded in the plaster inches above her head. She hesitated no more than a quick breath before she lunged planting her feet in the center of his chest launching him through the door where his back hit the railing knocking the breath out of him. She didn't waste a moment as she sprung after him knocking back the arm he raised and sending him over the edge to fall three stories.

He hit the ground hard enough he felt it rattle in his bones. Her boots struck the ground with a loud bang as she landed over him and he held his breath. No one had gotten this close before, some part of him buried too deep was praying she'd kill him.

Nothing came. He opened his eyes seeing her staring down at him horribly confused. Every color seemed to exist in her eyes, those soft eyes.

She hadn't understood, she'd seen his metal arm and the faceless mask and she assumed it was a machine. But she'd broken the covering over his eyes and the moment she'd seen his lashes she let go of the sword clipped to her belt. He opened them and he stared up at her, first alarmed then confused. They were so blue, and they hurt. Reaching timidly she pulled off the thick muzzle tracing his jaw.

It was as though she hadn't known he was human, he thought staring up at her innocent face. Her hands were gentle, kind, beneath all that strength. Hers were the kindest hands he could remember ever knowing.

He blinked and she was gone. Gazing up the stairwell he saw her leap the three floors and disappear back down the hall. With her gone his programming slipped back into place and his eyes turned to stone as he tightened his hold on the gun.

Elara stood over the man she'd come for, his eyes were wide and unblinking, his mouth dripping foam. She nudged him gently with her foot and sighed realizing he killed himself. She'd never not completed a mission before, ever. She didn't know what to do from here, and she'd just reached for the earpiece to call Fury when she heard a very faint sound behind her. Turning she saw the soldier wearing a cold expression and a scowl as he lifted the rifle. It'd been the slight shift in the metal of his arm, that's what she heard.

This time when she disappeared he kept aim firing a stream of bullets after her as she jumped through the window. The soldier looked through the broken glass at the spatter of blood on the roof across from them that she'd landed on. And dressed with the color of the night sky she leapt further from sight disappearing completely.

...

She stormed through the triskelion with blazing eyes and a severe frown. It seemed unnatural, no one got in her way.

"Did you know?" she demanded throwing herself into Fury's office and fixing him with a heavy glare.

Within seconds her face crumbled into something vulnerable and he sighed climbing to his feet. "Start with what happened," he told her trying to ease her into the truth.

But she already knew it, he could see it shining in her wide eyes. "You knew he was going to come after me, you wanted me to kill him." She realized that as she stood over the man she had very nearly killed, because Fury knew there was no other way she'd kill him unless she didn't know.

"Where's the target?" he asked trying to get her back onto the mission. It'd be easy enough to explain why he'd sent her she just had to give him enough time to speak.

She stepped back shaking her head. "You said you weren't like my father," she said, her quiet voice breaking. He tried to say her name, to call her back so he could fix this, but she stepped further away from him. "You lied to me."

He released a heavy breath as she left wishing she wasn't so stubborn. Maybe it hadn't been the best plan, at least not for her. Steve had been telling him more lately he was pushing her too far, eventually she'd either push back or she'd go back to her dad and they still had no idea what he was after. And Fury had a feeling, with how hurt she looked, this time might have been the one too far.

...

The floor was just the slightest bit uneven under the door so that when the light was on inside it shined out of the bottom crease between the door and the frame. Seeing it was dark Steve turned from her apartment and headed for his, and as he'd known the door was unlocked.

She was on the couch with her legs tucked under her and a bloody rag set over his first aid kit. "Mine was empty," she said by way of explanation for why she was here. As if she had anywhere or anyone else to go to but him.

He sat on the coffee table across from her setting his elbows on his knees. "Fury lie to you too?" he asked already knowing the answer. This wasn't the first time Fury sent her on something that'd gotten her hurt, she might not feel pain and she might heal faster, but she was very slowly losing herself here.

Her eyes were on her knees but she was playing with the bracelet she was never without. "If a good man lies is he still good?"

His hand was gentle as he placed it over hers, forcing her to look at him. She looked so sad, and he didn't know why. "The woman who gave you that," he looked to the bracelet, "what would she tell you?"

She frowned thinking of Nebula, of missing her and why it felt so much like she'd left part of herself behind. "She'd tell me I was a fool for trusting any man," Elara answered wondering where Nebula was. If she was alone, with Gamora, with their father. "And she'd kill him for hurting me."

Steve took a moment to consider her words, of the world she'd been raised in filled with the most terrible pain. And he looked at her, this girl who'd seen the worst the universe had to offer but was still gentle enough to be kind. "Have you had dinner yet?" he asked changing the subject drastically enough it would draw her thoughts out of the dark corners of her mind.

She traced his features from his warm eyes to his proud jaw and soft cheeks. If he was all she had on this planet, she thought he might be enough. Her hand slipped from the metal cuff as she stretched her legs planting her feet on the floor between his. "Wanna go downtown?" she offered, the despair clouding her eyes lifting as they widened with mild excitement.

His mouth twitched as though to smile, and with a short nod he climbed to his feet offering a hand to help her up. He gave her one of his jackets even though he knew she didn't get cold, and they headed out into a city that didn't feel like home with a person they were grateful to have but wasn't who they wanted.

But as they walked through the streets illuminated by what Elara called fairy lights, as her wide smile spread onto his mouth feeling part of the magic she was able to find in everything she looked at, the longing in them grew quiet if not silenced completely. It was late when they stumbled home with Steve carrying Elara on his back. She wore a hat she'd found holding a flower a drunk man had given her. The night hadn't started that way but it ended well.

Steve bid her goodnight seeing her to her apartment and waited until he heard the click of the deadbolt before he headed back to his own place.

She tossed the black ball-cap on the table and grabbed the vase of wildflowers she kept on the windowsill and added the new one to her ever growing bouquet. Tony rolled his eyes seeing them the first time he visited, he'd proceeded to buy her several bouquets of 'actual' flowers and while she did like some of them she still favored the ones that grew around sidewalks and on the side of the road and other places where they shouldn't but still did. Because they were beautiful, even if they weren't supposed to be.

Settling back on the stiff couch in front of the box of pictures she only watched when she couldn't sleep, which was most nights, Elara sighed at how empty the space beside her felt. Her father found her when she was too young to remember anything else, the only thing she'd ever known was wanting to be free of him. She hadn't thought it'd be this hard.

With her cheek in hand she stared with desperate yearning at the funny family on the television, how different they all were but their love was the same. But someone was on the roof in the building across from them, the aim of his rifle set level with Steve's apartment where he was talking to Fury. It was a quiet night, innocent and unassuming. This time she didn't hear the clink of the metal plating on his arm shifting to alert her the soldier was there. But she heard the bullet leave the barrel before it burst through Steve's wall hitting its target, and she was already on her feet running.

* * *

_I'm trying to show rather than tell in my writing so I'm never sure how it actually comes across. But I wanted to note that Elara and Bucky's first meeting had zero to do with attraction (that will come later) and didn't really have much to do with each other at all. Bucky's hesitation came from her taking him down very easily and yet choosing to let him live, she's not his typical target and it gave him pause. Whereas Elara's hesitation was her not wanting to believe Fury sent her there hoping she'd kill the him. That's all, hope you enjoyed. _


	4. Chapter 4

Elara forced her way into Steve's apartment and scanned the room looking for him. Seeing him kneeling she got a hand on either of his arms pulling him up with her. "You are okay?" she asked hearing Fury's faint uneven breaths as he lay bleeding beside them.

She was such a sweet docile thing that the ferocity in her hard stare surprised him. He could almost see the assassin Fury said she'd been. "I'm fine," he assured her.

Without hesitation she let him go and dropped heavily to her knees beside Fury. She knew what to do, he'd trained her for it. Hearing Sharon coming through the door to check on her ward Elara tucked the now empty syringe in her pocket as she looked for the source of the bleeding and placed her hands over the seeping wounds applying pressure.

"Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive. I need EMTs," Sharon said over the walkie she pulled from her pocket. Elara never thought she was a nurse; she was too focused, her eyes watched too heavily.

"Do we have a shooter?" came a staticky voice on the other end.

Steve moved back from the window, his face a stern mask. "Tell him I'm in pursuit," he said before he barreled after the fleeing soldier.

Elara didn't take her eyes off Fury's face, this was her mission now. She traveled with him in the ambulance hearing his breathing and heartbeat grow so faint she had to concentrate to hear it.

She followed him into the ER when they took him. She hugged the multicolored tiled wall creeping after them, and she stayed in the corner watching them closely ready to lunge at any moment. She didn't know any of the words they used or even what they were doing to him, all she knew is they were trying to help.

She held her breath when Natasha got there with Steve not far behind her. He scanned every inch of that room looking for her eyes, it was the only part of her she couldn't camouflage. He sighed when he didn't find them.

When Elara was sure both of them had gone she opened her eyes seeing Fury lying on the table under a white blanket, and beneath that she listened to the imperceptible slow beat of his heart. She didn't like lying to Steve, to not tell him what was going on because she trusted him more than Fury. But Fury was the one in need, Steve would just have to be angry later.

It wasn't long that a message came through over her phone, it was Hill asking after the target SHIELD already knew died hours before. Changing into a pair of scrubs Elara wheeled his body to the elevator under the guise of taking him to the morgue. She didn't know what a morgue was but she hit the button to take her to the basement where she ditched the gurney and carried Fury to the car Hill was waiting with the doctor in.

"You know where to go?" Maria asked as she drove them to the building where a jet was waiting.

Elara nodded as she sat turned in her seat watching the doctor closer than he was comfortable with. "Mr Fury made me memorize the coordinates. You're getting Steve and Natasha?" she asked finally taking her eyes off the man who was something close to scared of her and looked at Maria.

"Yes. But SHIELD is compromised, don't trust anyone unless Nick tells you to," she told her knowing Elara would be the one naive enough to give their location away. "Do you understand?"

Elara nodded again, her hard eyes once more trained on the doctor. "You know the location, no one needs to call or ask."

A wry smirk curled half of Maria's mouth as she parked on the roof beside the jet. "He doesn't give you enough credit." She was naive, gullible even, but she wasn't stupid.

With her arms under him cradling him like a baby she carried Fury to the jet and waved as Maria backed down the garage. Climbing in the pilots chair she turned only enough to see the man behind her and asked, "do I need to tell you what happens if he dies or can you figure it out yourself?"

He swallowed thickly at the heavy weight of her sharp gaze and shook his head. Satisfied Elara set their course and flew them to the safe house.

...

His eyes were slow to open, heavy, feeling like he had to peel them back each time he blinked. Shifting his weight he became suddenly aware of the dull ache in his shoulder and on his side.

"How are you feeling Agent Fury?" Dr Fine asked seeing his glazed eyes were open.

He winced settling back in a more comfortable position. "I've been better, doc." He looked at the bespectacled man to see him straining to see the woman behind him out of the corner of his eye. "Down girl," Fury told Elara chuckling faintly.

"She hasn't left your side," the doctor told him before he stepped out of the room to give the two a moment.

Fury beckoned her closer and waited as she stood with her arms crossed watching him unhappily before she sighed and came over to sit on the edge of his bed. "Thank you," he told her, something he wasn't used to. She could be the most stubborn pain in the ass, but goddamn if she wasn't loyal. "I lied to you," he admitted, not because he thought he'd been wrong but because she needed to hear it. He stared hard at her cautious eyes and told her, "it won't happen again."

She blinked at him several quiet moments, hearing his ragged breathing and seeing his tired eyes, and nodded appreciating his words. "Yes it will," was her honest reply. It surprised him to realize how much she'd been paying attention. Yet her face was gentle as she kept looking at him. "But you don't have to die next time to say you're sorry."

He barked a deeply amused laugh before he curled in on himself with a hand clutching his side. "You're a good girl, kid," he mumbled patting her hand before his mind drifted back into a drug induced dream.

With a heavy sigh her face straightened as she stared at him, this man who she trusted as little as she knew. And look how far she'd come when he needed her. "I'm trying to be," she replied, her voice quiet and broken in such a way she sounded like a child. As she sat back her hand slid down her arm and her fingertips grazed the rough metal encircling her wrist, and she wondered how hard it'd be to fix this so she could go home.

...

She was sitting in a chair next to Fury listening to Dr Fine as he told her of his first surgery. It took some time as he stopped to explain the words, the equipment, why humans were such frail fleeting things. She loved stories, she warmed to him quickly.

But she paused sitting upright before she stood and made her way out of the room they were in. The doctor came up behind her and she held him back listening hard to the number of footsteps, there was one too many, then she heard a faint voice she recognized and released a breath as she relaxed. "They're here," she told him.

It took him a few seconds to understand, because he himself could hear nothing, but as he ran to greet them Elara returned to Fury's side. That's where they found her when they came in; Steve, Nat, Sam and Maria. But their eyes were on Fury, having seen him dead.

Fury looked at the two wide eyed kids in front of the bed he lay and grumbled, "It's about damn time."

Dr Fine ushered Natasha into a chair so he could assess the damage done to her shoulder, which thankfully wasn't much. Fury explained to the two watching him closest how close to death he'd come while Fine stitched up Natasha, whose relief had been replaced with hurt.

"Why all the secrecy, why not just tell us?" Steve asked glancing briefly at Elara. After Fury had been shot, in the heat of the chase Steve hadn't noticed how odd it was she stayed behind, but he noticed she was gone when he got back. She'd been with Fury from the beginning, with all his lies, and now she wouldn't look at him.

Maria answered quickly in Furys defense. "The attempt on the director's life had to look successful."

"They can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury told them himself, not caring to make excuses. "Besides, I didn't know who to trust."

Steve's eyes fell to Natasha seeing her tight-lipped frown knowing that hurt her. Then he looked to Elara, who Fury had decided to trust, and he jerked his head beckoning her to follow him.

She followed slowly, her head bowed and her face forlorn. "Hi Sam Wilson," she bid him as she shuffled past.

"Good to see you again," he said with a nod, his arms crossed over his chest still not trusting the situation.

Clearing his throat Elara sighed walking out of the room so they could talk. "Fury's made his trust issues clear, but you," Steve said looking at her disappointed and wounded. Almost every step she'd made her time on Earth he'd made with her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Her head was still bowed, her gaze set on his shoe and even that looked angry with her. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone." Steve hunched forward lowering his head until he found her eyes, and from how close she was to tears he didn't buy that this was just about orders. "He needed me more than you," she offered in a small voice.

"Fury's the only thing that's been keeping you here, he was finally incapacitated enough you could run." From the way her face fell apart Steve knew that'd been her first thought, get Fury here and leave. But Maria was bringing Steve, and he knew he was really the only reason she stayed this long. With his hands on his hips he thought long and hard until he finally released a heavy breath and looked at her. "Tell you what: you help me finish this, I'll help you leave."

Her face smoothed with surprise, not just that he knew she wasn't happy here because he was the only one who cared to notice, but because he would help. She never thought anyone would. And it made her chest ache. She always knew leaving him would hurt. "What do you need?"

A breath of a laugh left him as a faint sad smiled twitched on his mouth. She really was a good girl. "HYDRA has my oldest friend, my best friend," he clarified and even then it didn't feel like enough. "He doesn't remember me, but I want him back. Now he's a lot stronger than I remember, and he's gonna try to fight you, but that's not who he used to be."

"Does he have a metal arm?" she asked having seen old pictures Steve had shown her, she knew the face of the man he was talking about. He'd been so hard the night before she hadn't recognized him.

Steve's brows drew together. "How did y-" his face smoothed in understanding. "He's the one who shot you, Fury was hoping you'd take him out."

Elara looked at his deeply unhappy face, angry and sad and longing. "His eyes hurt," she told him knowing he'd understand.

And he did, he was glad to hear she'd seen that - she'd go easier on Bucky when she saw he was trying to hurt other people. There wasn't much that'd make her turn on someone, but that did it every time. "We have a deal?" he asked holding his hand out to her with a smile he tried to make less strained.

Even her own smile was half of what it normally was as she shook his hand agreeing to those terms. "Just so you know," she started as they made their way back to where the others were moving to the main room, "I don't want to leave you."

His gaze fell from hers and he nodded finding he didn't want her to go either. "I have one condition." He watched her expression turn in on itself knowing how often she'd been lied to and manipulated. "Don't go back to your father." She'd lost her faith in good here, but if her time on earth did anything he hoped it stoked her need to be free.

Not once in her time knowing him had he ever stopped amazing her. These humans, such strange creatures. "Who knows, maybe you'll convince me to stay."

"You know I have to try," he said raising a hand to her back as they stepped into the main room.

Fury looked between them having never liked how close they were, she followed him almost blindly. And as he explained the plan to retake the helicarriers and take out HYDRA, which Steve then turned on its head to wipe out SHIELD as well, Fury didn't even need to look at Elara to know who she was siding with. They were all in agreement with Captain America as their leader.

"What does she do?" Sam asked jerking his chin to where Elara stood to the left of Fury. He knew Steve Rogers and he'd seen both Natasha and Maria, but the young woman seemed too wide eyed for this.

Steve turned from him to Elara and considered the answer a moment before he spoke, harking back to Sam's own words. "She does what I do, only harder." He met her eye across the table and the two shared a heavy look and a knowing nod.


	5. Chapter 5

She moved an unseen ghost between the stationed guns set atop the rogue helicarrier as they drew aim on the man that soared on metal wings above them. There was a violent bang rattling one gun as the barrel was forcibly severed and the ammunition exploded inward. Moments before he felt the first too warm flames sear his skin he was jerked out of the machine gun so fast he felt like he was flying. He hit the tarmac and rolled feeling strong hands grab him to hold him steady. Blinking dazed and relieved he looked up to see a tall proud woman standing over him before she launched herself into another gun.

Grabbing another HYDRA soldier she heard the roar of a jet and looked up to see them targeting Sam. Letting go of her charge she ran across the long flat helicarrier gaining enough speed to launch herself high in the air with her sword drawn.

Sam looked over his shoulder ready to fall several hundred feet to get out of the plane's targeting system, but he saw a flash of silver and almost heard her body as it tore through the metal. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure she does a lot more than you do," he told Steve through the earpiece he'd been given as he flew straight for the carrier he was infiltrating. He'd almost laughed when Fury said she'd be their defense, as the jet blew behind him he wasn't laughing anymore.

"Would you like me to list her skill set alphabetically?" was Steve's distracted reply as he flung his shield into a HYDRA agent.

She hit the landing strip of another helicarrier with a loud clang, one hand held out to steady her as she crouched on bended knee. Slung across her back was the pilot she'd ripped from the jet, his arms tight around her shoulders and her other hand under his knees to keep any part of him from hitting the ship.

She did this over and over, over and again. Her collection of HYDRA soldiers grew and she left them restrained in wire that Fury had given her spooled in a bracelet. One particularly nervous looking SHIELD agent stayed with them holding the gun she'd given him, the one Fury gave her that she'd yet to actually use. The young man's head stayed in constant rotation moving between his bound and gagged prisoners and trying to follow her quick impossible movements. She operated with an awe inspiring terrible grace, The Angel of Slatina.

…

Seeing Steve lying a wet bloody mess on the river bank Elara stepped away from the tree letting the color of rough jagged bark slip off her. This time the soldier, or maybe he was Bucky, saw it happen and knew it wasn't a cloaking mechanism. It was just her, in a white suit that clung to her skin taking on whatever color she did.

He made the mistake of blinking, of not holding his focus as severe as she was. She lunged knocking him back and he hit the ground hard enough he bounced off it. As he tried to sit up she threw herself on him pinning him down like the strength in his metal arm was nothing to her.

"You are not fighting back," she stated looking less fierce and more confused. This was not the same soldier she'd fought days before.

His memories might've been spinning like a top on a table so he couldn't make sense of anything, but he remembered her. That raw strength, those kind hands, those strange soft eyes. "I don't wanna hurt you," he told her and it surprised him how much he meant it. Maybe he was Bucky, he didn't know yet.

His eyes hurt. A breath went out of her and she shifted her weight, testing the truth of his words, and she settled over his chest when he didn't move. He was honest.

"Echo, this is Foxtrot, do you copy?"

She rolled her eyes at their silly names and reached a hand to her ear to send her own greeting. "HYDRA is gone Mr Fury, I have Steve," she told him picturing the way he ground his jaw in irritation.

"Do you have eyes on the Winter Soldier?"

She looked down at the man Steve called Bucky, who laid waiting for whatever she decided because in that moment he was just as tired of fighting as she was. "No, he's gone." She watched surprise fill his cautious eyes as he blinked up at her. Lowering her hand from the earpiece she told him, "my father always said my heart was too soft. Do you think he's right?"

"Probably," he admitted. He remembered shooting her, wanting to kill her, but twice now she held back. She rose to her feet standing tall and proud above him, but she held her hand out to him in gentle offering. He hesitated, his mind still spinning too fast to catch up, before accepting it. She pulled him to his feet too hard and he stumbled slightly, feeling her hand tighten around him as he settled. She couldn't be more than an inch shorter than him, and standing this close he noticed a strangeness to her features without knowing what was off.

"They're coming closer, you should go."

He stepped back not understanding her, she was just letting him go. Without paying him anymore mind she dropped to her knees beside Steve Rogers, this man who knew him. Had so much faith in him he wanted to be Bucky, but he wasn't sure yet if he was. Or if he could be.

...

Her mystified expression was reflected in the glass of the vending machine as she held the dollar bills Sam had given her. His own reflection could be seen behind her as he leaned in the doorway watching her, his expression one part endeared and two parts confused wondering.

He'd asked her several minutes before if she wanted something from the vending machine, which she didn't know by name and had never used. So at Steve's tired urging Sam had taken her and stood with waning patience as she looked through every option with painstaking focus.

Finally she made her decision settling for a bag of chips. "Now are you sure that's the one you want?" Sam asked her as she stood upright with her little bag.

She blinked at him a few short moments pondering his words before she understood. "You're trying to be funny," she said stepping past him into the hall to head back to Steve's room. Tony used sarcasm frequently, she didn't always catch it.

"No, baby girl, I am funny," Sam told her as he walked in step beside her. She was at the very least an inch taller than, he wasn't overly fond of that. She smiled at him and he smirked finding her strange but sweet, and very pretty. "You know," he said reaching a hand to her elbow to get her to stop with him just outside Steve's room, "I've seen you two times and I don't know much more than your name. Thought if you're interested we could go out sometime," he said more than asked still trying to get a feel for her. She wasn't his usual type, she was nice and unassuming. But hell if she couldn't fight. He liked that.

"Out of where?" she asked with a confused innocence that made her youthful face look very open.

He chuckled faintly before he understood she was serious. He took a breath and opened his mouth as though to answer but there was nothing, and he sighed letting his shoulders slump as he looked at her odd colored eyes. Pretty, but weird. "Where are you from?" is what he settled on.

"Another planet," Steve piped in having laid in the bed silent until then, curious what Elara would do.

Sam jerked his head around to look at him before turning back to Elara. "Shit, what?"

Steve raised a hand Elara stepped into the room and sat in the chair beside him. "You got my favorite," he said noticing the chips.

"I couldn't pick," Elara replied with a shrug. She leaned closer to him and lowered her voice to not quite a whisper and asked, "where does he want me to go?"

Beside himself Steve laughed, but seeing her face fall he held her hand gently. "On a date, it's like courting," he told her before turning to Sam, who had his arms crossed as he watched the two wondering if he'd gotten them wrong. "She's already got someone".

"My bad, man, I didn't know," Sam was quick to tell him.

But Steve shook his head with a half lucid grin. "It's not me," he assured the other man. "Not that I would've let you take her anywhere."

Sam nodded understanding that. He saw her as his responsibility, and considering she didn't move without looking to him first it was clear she trusted him.

Still holding her hand Steve told her, "I know you let Bucky go. Thank you."

Elara shrugged not quite meeting his eyes as she thought of the strange broken man. And as Steve asked Sam to work with Elara to try to find him again, Elara sat quietly making her own plans.

...

He stood within an oblivious crowd staring at an old video of a man who had his face but didn't feel like him. The man beside him, Steve Rogers, he was as familiar to him as he wasn't. The Bucky in the video was smiling, the Bucky he didn't know if he was yet wasn't.

"You look happier."

Her soft voice spooked him and he turned pushing through the crowd losing her as he rushed for the exit. Turning into the alley beside the museum he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and without thought he whirled swinging.

She caught his arm easily and shoved him into the brick wall. He tried a different approach and growled as his back hit the wall again.

"You do better not fighting," she told him simply.

He sighed heavily glaring at her infuriatingly calm face. "What do you want?" he demanded through clenched teeth, tightening his hands into fists ready to run if she tried to attack. But she blinked silently at him and he shifted his weight uncomfortably under her unyielding gaze. "I'm not that guy anymore," he tried to tell her. But still she watched him without speaking and he sank against the wall almost defeated. "I'm trying not to be." Still nothing, she didn't move, didn't seem to breathe, she just waited. "What the hell do you want from me?"

"You can't stay here".

He laughed sadly not finding any part of this funny. "Where am I supposed to go?"

She thrust her hand out to him offering him a piece of paper. His brows drew together as he took it, and his vulnerable eyes rose to her kind face at seeing it was a train ticket. "You had to know he would look for you," was the first thing she said to him in several long tense moments.

The breath went out of him as he relaxed in a way he hadn't been able to in seventy years. "You're warning me," he said needing to hear it aloud and see her small nod to know it was true. There were a lot of things he didn't know, that he couldn't make sense of, but not her.

"I'll find you again, James," she told him, using the name she'd heard from the museum.

His eyes were wide and needy and they followed her as she walked away. She hadn't meant it as a threat, but rather she said it as a promise.

* * *

_I realized there were a couple things I've never explained. A lot happened in the year and a half I skipped over, one being where her title Angel of Slatina comes from. It was a mission that will be addressed in my one shot version of this story whenever I get around to that. Also I chose Slatina because it's where the faceclaim I'm using in this story is from. _

_Also, if anyone is wondering why I chose her coloring, yellow skin and blue and white hair, it was because it's the primary colors. _


	6. Chapter 6

Her hands were bound too tight and she shifted her weight uncomfortable and enraged. No one would come for her, Nebula knew that. Even if Elara came she'd never go against Gamora. Nebula hated them both.

Studying the metal bracelet with a strange red stone that was almost translucent Gamora stood with too many feet between her and her sister, too far to feel like claiming her. She'd seen this before and it took some time before she remembered they were a matching set. A beacon to call home.

"Where is she?" Gamora demanded charging to where Nebula sat restrained. "Tell me where our sister is."

"Or what?" Nebula challenged.

Her laugh was small and sad knowing how much that would've hurt Elara. "I know you love her. This time Nebula turned her face away refusing to say anything more. Elara had been gone for two years, her absence spanned the galaxy. Gamora knew that ache well. "You know what he'll do to her if he finds her. If you ever loved her-"

"I don't," Nebula said through bared teeth. "Love her," Nebula finished.

Her voice had wrapped around those two words softly, painfully. And Gamora didn't believe her. "Where is she?" Gamora asked again, wanting to find her before Thanos did.

But Nebula only turned her face further away. Elara wasn't coming back, somehow Nebula thought she would. That being apart would feel as wrong for her as it felt to Nebula. If this is what Elara wanted, Nebula would let her die for it.

...

Bucky walked with his shoulders hunched forward and his hat low on his brow. He didn't feel like Bucky yet, but he didn't feel like the soldier anymore.

He'd been at a busy cafe, busy because it was easy to hide, when he saw the man who'd been fighting with Steve. Now he was walking briskly away, too fast to be comfortable but not fast enough to look like he was running. He was tired of running, some days he didn't think he'd ever get to stop.

Without warning an unseen force slammed into him sending him stumbling into the small walkway between two buildings. His hands tightened into fists as he turned ready to fight, even though he was tired of that too. But he watched the color slip off her and he released a heavy breath as he settled waiting as she scanned the crowd for Sam before turning to him. "I haven't done anything," he told her like it mattered. Like anything could make up for his past, like his bloody hands would ever be clean.

"I know," she told him grabbing the front of his jacket as she pulled him further down the alley. Once the two shops ended it opened wider revealing the back doors for several more stores that all led here where a handful of dumpsters lined the brick walls. The only way out was the way they just came.

Casting a look over his shoulder he expected to see Sam, that she was trying to turn him in, that there was a reason not to trust her. But there was only the oblivious crowd walking past the alley only big enough to fit a garbage truck. "Why are you helping me?"

She turned from the tall back wall and looked at his narrowed blue eyes. "Because you need it," she answered with so much innocence he actually believed her. "Get on, we don't have a lot of time."

For several moments he stared at her back wearing confusion like a mask, but she shot him a stern look and he growled a sigh before wrapping his right arm around her shoulder, leaving the metal one hanging because he didn't want to -

"You're not going to hurt me," she said knowing what he was doing. She grabbed his metal wrist and slung that arm across her collar before she started climbing.

It was at least fifteen feet high, and he watched her raise one of her pretty hands with her long thin fingers and grab into the brick like it was softer than butter. At this point he'd wrapped his legs around her too, hearing the bricks cracking under her effortless strength.

"How are you this strong?" he asked realizing he didn't know anything about her.

She pulled them onto the roof and turned to him as they sat atop it. "My father said my heart makes me weak so I have to be strong." She crept forward hearing him follow her after a moment. When she was at the edge of where she needed to be she turned back to her wary charge and handed him another ticket. "You should think about leaving the country, it would be harder for him to find you."

He'd already been thinking that, had even thought of a way he just hadn't been ready to give up on this place that felt both familiar and new to him. "Any place in mind?" he asked more bitter than he meant, but she either didn't notice or didn't care.

She flipped the envelope with the ticket over showing the scrawled number she'd written. "If you need me before I find you," she explained to his broken expression. "Bye James," she told him with a warm grin before she slipped down the building and rounded the corner meeting Sam.

"Any sign of him?" he asked still scanning the sea of people around them on their way to work. The red tinted goggles he wore moved from face to face looking for their target.

"No, but I saw a man with a cart selling flowers."

His eyes rose to the cloudy grey sky and he took a breath before turning to her perpetually enthusiastic face. She was a terrible tracker, but hell if she wasn't a fun partner. "Wanna stop by on the way back?" he asked her dryly. But beside himself a smile twitched across his mouth at her excited nod.

As Sam turned back the way he'd come her face fell to one of severe determination as she glanced up at where Bucky sat waiting. He watched her go leaving him with nothing left but the hole she'd torn in his fractured life. And it was gaping.

When the two were gone he scaled the building and moved slowly to the half wall that encased a few trees that'd been planted years before. And wearing an almost vulnerable expression he picked up the flower she'd left for him, this small delicate thing. Taking a breath he glanced around him before walking away with his head ducked low as he tucked the flower in his pocket.

.^.

It was late when the door to the apartment beside his was unlocked, he heard the loud click of the heavy deadbolt and climbed out of bed. His feet padded softly over the carpet as he made his way to the door, and he stepped back as he pulled it open already knowing she'd be on the other side.

"You were gone a while this time," Steve said as they settled back on the couch. She'd been gone for over a week, she looked horribly tired.

She shrugged pulling at the leg of her pants as she sat with her knees to her chest. "Tony thinks he's closer."

He'd taken as many samples from her as he could, the worst was bone marrow because he had to drill into her metal reinforced spine. It was as close to pain as she could remember. But he'd seen her skin cells under a microscope change their shape to better reflect light and all but disappear as their color shifted to that of the tray.

"It takes you out of the fight," he offered trying to find the good since she wasn't able to. But it sounded hollow even to him. The alternative to being used as a weapon of SHIELD was to be a lab rat, even Tony wasn't happy with the arrangement because he could see her fading. She hated this place, she hated her life. She always had and no matter how far she ran nothing ever changed for her.

For a while Steve sat opening his mouth prepared to say the words but he sighed because he had the words just not the want to say them. Eventually he came to terms with how selfish it was keeping her here, this girl who tried so hard to be the good she'd never been able to find in her world. Decided, he turned to where she sat beside him and wasn't surprised to find her patiently waiting. "I know we made a deal," he said not quite able to meet her watchful eye, "but you don't have to wait until we find Bucky." Her eyes were wide with surprised melancholy and he could muster only the smallest of sad smiles. And even that was a lie. "If it gets too much, you say the word and I'll get you out."

Her gaze raked his kind face finding him honest. Taking a deep breath she exhaled and shrunk against him with her heavy head on his shoulder. "He misses you," she told him knowing he was thinking of Bucky. That Bucky was who she somehow always made him want.

"How do you know?" he asked not believing Sam's reports on how useless she was in their search. He knew how focused she could be, how much her eyes saw, Bucky couldn't hide from her. Unless she didn't want him found.

But she shrugged, which was nothing more than a twitch of her shoulders. "Because I'll miss you," she answered admitting how much she'd been thinking of leaving.

Thoughts of his old friend slipped back into the far corners of his mind, not far enough to forget. He reached a hand to her knee and squeezed it gently. He'd miss her too. "I think I love Lucy is on," he said looking for something to distract their sad thoughts.

"The woman downstairs is watching it," Elara said handing him the remote.

His smile was small, fond of this sweet strange woman. He felt her cold hand settle over his holding it gently. He'd miss her too.

.^.

A salty bitter wind blew across Bucky's still youthful face, but his eyes were filled with too many years and he stared at the sea a weary man. The clang of boots on the deck had him drawing into himself as he turned with balled fists ready to fight. "Jesus," he muttered releasing a hot breath at seeing it was her. Again. He remembered more now, what he'd done. This time he was running from her too.

"It would be easier if you would tell me where you were going instead of making me find you," she told him simply as she stood at the railing looking at the gentle waves as they set sail.

He scoffed a laugh shaking his head, finding it harder to look at her this time. If she knew who he was she wouldn't be here, he didn't care to wait for the inevitable understanding and the obvious loathing that would come with it. "It'd be easier if you stopped following me."

She turned at his carved tone and clenched jaw, reminded of Nebula in his stubborn refusal to let her in. "So where are you going?" she asked with her own stubbornness as she stood her ground, beside him.

"Away," was the only answer he had as he leaned against the railing. She was right in him needing to leave the country and he'd gotten a job on this ship in charge of the plumbing and he'd get off wherever they docked first. It was a shit job for a shit life. With a heavy sigh he sat with his back against the wall and his legs stretched toward the railing and he looked up following the curve of her willowy frame as she sat beside him. He was almost getting used to her, enough he was beginning to notice the strangeness of her features. "Who are you?" he asked, having put it off long enough. They wouldn't dock for almost a month, he was stuck with her now.

"Elara," she answered not sure if she knew herself more than that.

It wasn't what he meant but he saw a glimpse of something in her eyes, that looked almost yellow in the light, that looked like him. "Where are you from?" he tried again. Trying to figure out this impossible woman.

"Another world."

His silence was audible as he processed that, blinking at her odd features – her eyes were too far apart and their color seemed to hold more than one, he'd notice how thin her frame was when he caught her at an angle, the exaggerated curve of her waist and wide eyes. Feline, reptilian. "That figures." Not only did he have a shadow he couldn't shake, it was an alien.  
For a while they sat in their respective silence hearing the muffled voices of the men further down the deck as they left the port for open water. He glanced at the side of her face not knowing what to say from here or even really who she was. But he noticed her disquiet, her mouth curved unnaturally into a frown. She didn't look happy, he didn't think she had last time either. But what he ended up saying was, "why are you here?"

His voice had been a little too hard, he said it a little too fast – he wasn't asking why she was on this planet he wanted to know why she was with him. She looked at his stony face and tired eyes and sighed not knowing what to say, it was a feeling and she didn't know how to say it. "My father took me from my home, he tortured me and my siblings. I used to have a brother and when he hated me I had Nebula, who loves me as much as she hates me. But now I am on this planet," a place she no longer wanted to be and she looked at him with sad eyes, "and it is lonely."

He blinked at her raw honesty and was filled with a sudden understanding that lent itself to warmth inside his chest. "You didn't want me to be alone." He saw himself in her eyes, swirling with pain and guilt. But there was a spark, fainter now than when he'd first met her, of hopeful innocence. "You're not bad for an alien," he decided, thinking worse things had happened to him than her. Stranger things, and they weren't as sweet as she was proving to be. He watched a smile split wide on her face, rounding her cheeks so that her eyes squinted. "Why are you looking at me like that?" It was probably the kindest anyone had ever looked at him, as far as he could remember, as far as he'd let himself remember because he thought Steve might've.

"I made my first friend," she answered still beaming.

His brows drew together as he leaned back to better see her. "You don't have any other friends?" He didn't believe that for a second, she was too open, too kind.

But she shook her head. "Circumstance made those for me," she told him, even though she loved Steve. "But I found you, and now we're friends."

He turned to the horizon swallowing a rush of indignation. Life was so much more than that, it was too simple, too naïve to fit everything they both had done. "We're not there yet," he said in effort to be gentle, but he sounded harsh even to his own ears. He didn't want to disappoint her, to hurt her, and he didn't think he was capable of doing anything else.

"Yeah we are," she told him sweetly, meeting his close to irritable eye. "But it's okay, I don't mind waiting for you to catch up."

He watched her turn to the ocean with her knees drawn to her chest content to just sit beside him as the merchant ship charged through the water. For a moment so brief it was gone in the time it took him to blink, he considered continuing to push her away. His wounds too raw to want anyone to see them. But a breath left him and he sat beside her staring at the rolling sea, finding the thought of peace not as hopeless. Steve was a friend, it felt like too long with too much between them, but it was all he had to tether him here. And her. He turned to find her already looking at him, as if she were waiting. She had the softest eyes he'd ever known, they made him want to be known.  
"Fine," he relented seeing her blink first in confusion and then in surprised excitement. Before she could say anything else he told her bluntly, "but you're helping me scrub the toilets." He watched her face fall to somber understanding, like a balloon slowly deflating, and he chuckled so faint it barely shook his shoulders. But it was a start.


End file.
